Standing in the desert in the scorching sun, Jakub Mensik handles a basketball for a photo shoot that I’m observing—not the sport he usually excels at but, as with most things, he’s game. The photographer enthusiastically tries to give him some mocked-up scenario: Tie game. Seconds left on the clock.
Mensik shows off some handles, then shoots and misses. “I lose,” he deadpans.
But he persists, then decides to go for a dunk. Standing among the crew and other media flack, I can’t be the only one thinking, please, don’t injure yourself as he stretches, all 6’5” of him, toward the rim and comes up slightly short. He shakes his head. “I need one more centimeter.”
Finally, he makes a shot. “First try!” he says, and smiles. It’s a wry, genuine smile—the smile of someone who’s naturally funny but isn’t necessarily the most obvious about it.
It’s somewhat fitting. Mensik still keeps a relatively low profile in the tennis world, despite being the youngest man in the top 20 outside of Learner Tien (They’re both 20 years old; Mensik is a couple of months older.) Despite a ranking as high as 12, millions in prize money already made, and having the distinction of being the first male player born after 2004 to make a Grand Slam semifinal, he’s not a well-known name outside of pretty devoted tennis wonks. But I suspect that won’t be the case for much longer.
I’m following Mensik as he’s being shuttled around and juggling different appearances and photo shoots on a beautiful, clear day in the Palm Desert area, all while preparing to play at Indian Wells. The attention and media obligations are all pretty new, but he handles it affably and professionally. He’s a year out from the biggest win of his life: a shocking, improbable win at Miami in 2025. It was unlikely in a couple of ways, the first of which is that he was literally on his way to withdraw from the tournament due to knee pain, but the official he was looking for had already left for lunch.
So he went ahead and played the tournament—and casually won a Masters 1000. Oh, and he took out Arthur Fils and Taylor Fritz on the way to beating his idol, Novak Djokovic, in the final.
The Czech player, from the small city of Prostejov in the eastern part of the country, is introspective when discussing defeating his hero, who’s nearly twice his age. Djokovic’s dedication to self-improvement, even in his relatively advanced age, is one of the things that inspires him.
“In tennis, it’s beautiful that you can improve everywhere and anytime,” Mensik said. We were trekking across a parking lot, looking for his Uber driver. “Novak [is] already 38, 39 years old and he’s still playing and he’s saying in interviews how he needs to work on this and that, that he’s struggling with [aspects of the game]. That’s what I like because actually you can improve every week, every tournament, every match…. The sky’s the limit, basically.”
While both of Mensik’s parents were amateur athletes (his father played ice hockey and his mother skied), neither were tennis players, which might have eased pressure on Mensik when he was a child first learning to play. “In front of my parents’ house there are two tennis courts,” he explained. “When I was four years old, starting to know how the world works, then I was watching the young kids and all the other people…I was there spending all day long watching the others [play] tennis, so they decided to sign me to tennis school.”
Also fortunate is the fact that, despite a relatively small population of around 40,000, Mensik’s hometown of Prostejov is home to one of the most prestigious tennis centers in the nation. He’s aware of his position in the tennis-obsessed country of Czechia, a place that very well might produce more tennis champions per capita than any other country. (Please don’t fact-check that. If it’s not the most, then it’s pretty close.)
Mensik wants to continue the strong Czech tradition (“It's good to be part of that; to try to follow their steps”) and mentions following Thomas Berdych—who used to practice in Prostejov—-particularly closely. But Mensik has his own plans, his own path, and is in some ways, still just a big kid. He likes normal stuff: movies (“Now You See Me: Now You Don’t”), texting his girlfriend, playing video games (He likes FIFA, but doesn’t play as much now) and music (Czech rapper Viktor Sheen). At one point, I photobomb a selfie he takes and when he notices, he laughs and gives me a thumbs up.
His game is maturing quickly, and he leads an exciting group of younger male players—Learner Tien, João Fonseca, Rafael Jodar—making waves in the wake of the dominance of Alcaraz and Sinner. (Yes, they’re already ancient now. I know.) Mensik hasn’t played Alcaraz yet but has played Sinner once, in Doha. He won that match but doesn’t read too much into it. “It's good to follow their steps because they are showing me how it's done,” he said. “Beating Jannik and competing against him, basically on the same level, is showing me that I'm going the right way and that there is still a lot of space for improvement.”
And then there was this year’s French Open, which featured furnace-like conditions that wilted players, cramping quads and liquefying hamstrings. It hobbled Sinner, and Mensik felt the effects, too, convulsing on the ground after a second-round match. But he recovered (“If you’re going through the hell, just continue,” he said) to go on a deep run to the semi-finals before falling to backhand machine and eventual champion Alexander Zverev.
His quarterfinal match against Fonseca is, I think, where Mensik really demonstrated the qualities of his particular game. Yes, he hits a heavy, flat ball with an impressive serve-and-return game. But what I hadn’t really noticed was the movement and touch—feathery on half-volleys and surgical on dropshots.
Mensik has surprising speed and great agility that belies his exceptional height. He served bombs, as usual, and was excellent with his placement, leading to 83% of first-serve points won. He channeled his inner McEnroe and aggressively came to the net, winning 13 of 15 serve-and-volley points. He effectively neutralized Fonseca’s nuclear forehand and, while things got a little dodgy at the end with a half-dozen match points, he put the young Brazilian away in straight sets. Mensik called it “one of the best performances of my career.”
But today in the desert, Mensik is relaxed, modeling clothes and playing games for various photo shoots. He likes fashion—he set his sights on a particularly luxurious jacket during the shoot—and enjoys expressing himself in that way. “I can show in the pictures [who I am], and it's actually really fun,” he said.
A game of Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots with WTA phenom Victoria Mboko gets good-naturedly competitive and escalates rapidly. “I don’t like the conditions,” he jokes, when Mboko gets a good punch in on Mensik’s robot avatar. He emerges victorious, eventually, and asks, “Where’s the winning prize?”
You’ve doubtless heard the term “serve bot” to describe players overly reliant on their big serves. That’s not Mensik, who has a deft touch and quick step to complement his natural power. There is, however, at least one thing Mensik has in common with these Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots: You can be assured he’ll be knocking plenty of people’s blocks off in the near future.
Lucas Kwan Peterson is a writer, on-camera host and below-average tennis player. He's a Jeopardy! champion and lives in Los Angeles.
